Here's a short idea to update my post below on entry-level hiring for law professor jobs. It seems to me that one way to level the playing field between the entry-levels and the laterals would be to have lateral candidates present any paper they have written in the past five years (or some equivalent period). That is, the expectation wouldn't necessarily be of a new draft or forthcoming paper, as we have now with the widespread fiction of treating a job talk as if it were just a workshop. That way, a lateral candidates wouldn't have to go with whatever they happen to have on their plate, but could pick from what they have done relatively recently to find the paper most conducive to a job talk. I suspect that would help laterals give better presentations, helping to level the polish-and-style playing field and giving faculties a better sense of what a lateral candidate can offer.